WOMEN'S REPORT.

Suitable Start For Mid-con

March 05, 1997|By Lori Nickel.

It's only fitting that Northeastern Illinois (18-7) will play Valparaiso in the first round of the Mid-Continent Conference tournament in Buffalo Thursday because they didn't play when they were supposed to in February.

A mixup on the game time left the Crusaders (14-11) waiting around the gym long after warmups while the Golden Eagles were at a restaurant, thinking tipoff was hours away.

The Mid-Con forced Northeastern to forfeit the game, but neither the NCAA nor the university recognizes it as an official loss.

MCC tourney: Illinois-Chicago (8-18) and Northern Illinois (7-19) are tied for sixth place in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference and flipped a coin for sixth and seventh seeds respectively. MCC tourney play also begins Thursday in Green Bay. Northern takes on Butler (16-10) while UIC faces Wisconsin-Green Bay (16-10).

Northern sophomore guard Amanda Reese needs eight assists to tie the school's single-season record of 169, which both Denise Dove and Gena Stubbs reached in 1988-89. Reese is averaging 6.3 assists a game.

Loyola (3-13) finished in last place in the MCC and therefore will not be in the postseason eight-team tournament.

Four for sure: The way the Big Ten season has been going, even the top teams were worried about their NCAA Tournament futures.

But Iowa won an automatic berth Monday night after beating Illinois in the conference tournament finals, much to the relief of the Hawkeyes.

"We had to have it, we had to," Iowa coach Angie Lee said.

Even Purdue coach Nell Fortner was concerned her co-Big Ten champion Boilermakers were on the bubble after Indiana upset top seed Purdue in the conference tourney.

But Jean Lenti Ponsetto, chair of the NCAA selection committee and senior associate athletic director at DePaul, said the Boilermakers were probably in.

"It would obviously be considered an at-large team right now," said Lenti Ponsetto. "Purdue certainly distinguished itself this season."

Illinois and Michigan State are also NCAA locks.

Oh, by the way: Some people may remember that 22,152 fans literally packed Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 3, 1985 to see Iowa take on Ohio State. That would have been a Big Ten record, but the conference will not officially recognize it.

Carver only seated 15,635 then, so that is what stands as attendance in the Big Ten record books. But Iowa officials say some 7,000 fans stood in aisles and sat on stairs to see the game.

So the Illinois-Purdue game on Feb. 23, played before 16,050 at Assembly Hall in Champaign, stands as the "official" Big Ten attendance record.

No more orange: The Illini wore orange for the first time all season when they lost to Iowa Monday in the Big Ten title game.

Swoosh: The Big Ten agreed last week to a five-year contract with Nike to sponsor the conference tournament.